Savage Run by E. J. Squires Page B

tomorrow morning, dressed in your Savage
Run uniform, after which Nicholas and I will escort you to the
Conference Center for the Opening Ceremonies. If I hear of
any… any disturbances tonight, you’ll be crying for your mammas to
come get you. You are all free to go.”
    Nicholas pushes a button on the outside of
the hut causing the garage door to slowly screech open.
    “ Wait here with me,” Mai
says. I do as I’m told.
    Once everyone enters the hut, Nicholas
closes the garage door. “You got this?” he says to Mai. Mai nods
and he looks at me. “I’ll be back soon.” He starts down the
road.
    “ Come.” She heads across
the street to a townhome and I follow after her. We walk up the
stairs to the second floor. When she arrives at the top, she
inserts a keycard into a slot. The door vanishes, leaving an open
rectangle for us to enter through. Knowing that Nicholas also knows
something about what’s going on, he makes this whole situation a
little less scary, though my stomach still feels like it’s been
wrung over.
    Stepping inside, I see that there’s a simple
kitchen, two bedrooms, a small bathroom with a shower, a living
room, and an entertainment room with a screen embedded into the
wall. Everything is tight and small—compact, but clean and modern.
I remove my sandals, place them in the barely-there entranceway,
and step onto the cold tile floor.
    Even before I get past the entrance, Mai
says, “It was stupid of you to come here. It’s a fool’s quest—one
that will destroy you from the inside.”
    I’m so stunned that I can’t speak. Did
Nicholas tell her about me or didn’t he?
    “ You think you’ve come for
freedom, but you will only find your fears. And death. Take
Nicholas’s offer and go home. Don’t waste your life on
this…mirage.”
    I scramble to find something to say. “Living
as a Laborer isn’t living at all,” I squeak. I don’t know why, but
for some reason I don’t feel like I can speak freely around Mai.
Maybe it’s because of what happened between her and Johnny on the
aircraft. Maybe it’s because she’s a woman and I’m not used to
answering to women or for a woman to be anything other than
soft-spoken and demure.
    Mai’s phone rings and she vanishes out onto
the balcony. I make my way over to the window. Tall buildings are
everywhere, and since it is dark, most of them beam rays of
different-colored light into the sky. It’s nothing like back home
in Culmination, where once the night has fallen in the Laborer
section, it becomes pitch black. The difference is, at home I can
see every single star in the sky. Here, only the moon is visible,
and it’s not pure and white like back home. It’s an
orangey-yellow.
    Before Gemma was sent to go work for Master
Douglas, we used to go stargazing at least a couple of times a
week. I’d sneak out of my father’s trailer, and we’d climb the
small, grassy hill next to our subdivision and lie down in the open
field. We’d gaze for hours and talk about things like freedom and
what it would feel like to fall in love with a guy. With tears in
my eyes, I look up into the sky in search of a star. But there are
none. I reach for my mother’s locket, but just like Gemma, it’s
gone.
    Mai slides the glass door open and steps
inside. I quickly wipe my tears.
    “ That was President Volkov
again. The reason he’s been calling is because Master Douglas
called him.”
    I feel all the blood leave my face. “Oh…” My
arms suddenly feel like they weigh a hundred pounds each.
    “ He says there’s a problem
with your ID.”
    “ W…what?” I try to act
surprised, but it’s hard to act surprised when I feel terrified.
    “ He’s sending a couple of
his Unifers to confirm your identity.”
    Confirm my identity? What does that mean?
“When?”
    “ Right now.”
    I run my hands through my short hair and
begin to pace; back and forth, back and forth.
    “ Heidi,” Mai says, grabbing
me by the shoulders.
    It takes a second